Tag: Missions

The Great Blindspot That Is Weekly Missionary Chapel

Differing Instincts

In 1799, Ward and Marshman arrived as teammates for William Carey. They quickly formed a local church together in the city of Serampore. Later, when Krishna Pal became the first local believer, he also joined this small church plant, eventually serving there as a deacon. The instinct of this pioneer missionary team was, first, that they themselves needed to be part of a local church even while they labored hard to reach the locals. No local church yet existed, so they formed one. Notice that they did not wait until a local came to faith to form a church. Nor did they set up some kind of parachurch structure for themselves for weekly worship while retaining their church memberships back in England.

Fast forward to today. A missionary team from Latin America serves in our region of Central Asia. Before they were kicked out and moved to our current city, they served several years in a difficult and conservative town up in the mountains. During their time there, they asked their organization to send them a Spanish-speaking pastor who would live in their city and provide pastoral care for their families. This team, like those in Serampore 225 years ago, instinctually pursued a local church structure for themselves (an in-person pastor, though not a full fledged church), even while they labored hard to reach the locals and plant churches among them.

I point out the instincts of these Serampore and Latino teams because they are not the instincts of your average Western missionary on the field today. Rather than forming a local church for themselves or joining one, the most common approach of today’s Western missionary is to bypass local church in favor of what I’ll call Weekly Missionary Chapel.

The Blindspot

What is Weekly Missionary Chapel? Essentially, it is when a missionary team or missionaries from partner teams gather weekly to fellowship, pray, worship, and engage God’s word together through teaching, preaching, or group discussion. These missionaries most often retain their membership in their sending churches back home, so Weekly Missionary Chapel provides a vital place for their weekly in-person Christian encouragement. It is flexible, efficient, simple to pull off, easily reproducible, and can be done as long as necessary while missionaries remain on the field.

Sounds great, right? What could be wrong with busy missionaries gathering weekly for something encouraging and so quintessentially Christian like this? I myself had seasons of deep encouragement as a single on the field in this very kind of context. Well, as our locals say when they have to be the bearers of bad news, “chuffed by a pot of grape leaves ‘a stuffed.” I’m convinced that the dominance of Weekly Missionary Chapel as a model for missionaries is actually doing a good deal of harm – and that it is one of the greatest blindspots of Western missionaries today.

This is, perhaps, a surprising claim. But what follows are nine dangers that I and a minority of other concerned missionaries see when our friends on the field bypass the local church in favor of Weekly Missionary Chapel.

1 – Weekly Missionary Chapel does not constitute a biblical church, even if it sometimes feels like one. Though Christians may differ on what exactly constitutes a local church according to the Bible, serious believers should agree that 1) there is a line somewhere that separates a group Bible study from a legit church, and 2) that line should be determined by the Bible. Missionaries are not always required to wrestle with the Bible’s ecclesiological minimum (the point at which the minimum ingredients are in place for a group to cross the line whereby it can biblically be called a church), but they should be. Especially if they are church planters. How are we going to start something healthy for the locals if we can’t even define it and name it according to the Bible ourselves?

Instead, far too many missionaries use the house churches of the New Testament to cover for the fact that they really can’t really define what a church is. “We do team worship because they did church in homes in the New Testament.” Don’t get me wrong, I’m fully convinced that contemporary house churches can be biblical churches. But to do this, they need to do more than gather weekly for fellowship, prayer, worship, and time in the Word. Rather, Christians have long held (and I agree) that the New Testament requires the right administration of the Lord’s Supper and Baptism to qualify as a local church, as well as some kind of sacred mutual identity, commitment, and accountability to one another (often summarized as covenant and membership).

There are central things that constitute the minimum for a group to be a church, and to be called such. It might not be a healthy or mature church yet, but once it has these core ingredients it can now appropriately make the linguistic shift from group to church. It might not have elders yet, it may not have missions yet, it may not have organized systems of giving or membership or discipline. But I believe it can legitimately be called a church if it has the characteristics of the newborn church in Acts 2 – word, prayer, fellowship, baptism, Lord’s supper, evangelism, discipleship, caring for members’ needs, and the necessary inside-outside distinction required to be and continue as an actual spiritual family – “the Lord added to their number day by day” (Acts 2:41-47).

Weekly Missionary Chapel, on the other hand, does not have some of the basic Acts 2 ingredients, the bare minimum necessary components to count as a local church. In particular, these weekly gatherings on the mission field often lack the Lord’s supper and baptism. And they almost always lack the sacred self-identity/mutual commitment piece. In fact, many are intentionally aiming not to be a local church.

When Weekly Missionary Chapel replaces the local church for missionaries, it’s not unlike a couple that decides to live together without getting married. Quite a few of the functions and benefits of marriage are there, but without the sacred commitment that comes along with real marriage as recognized by God. Something very important and honorable has been skipped. Sadly, Weekly Missionary Chapel is the kind of blindspot that causes the same evangelicals who plead with their relatives to get married rather than cohabitate to then themselves do something similar with the bride of Christ in their own mission field community.

This first danger is important to point out because there is no class of Christian who is justified in remaining voluntarily separate from the local church (Heb 10:25). But when missionaries attend Weekly Missionary Chapel long-term rather than forming or joining an actual local church, they are doing just that – ignoring a form of weekly obedience required of all believers everywhere, regardless of calling, gifting, or ministry. When it comes to the need to be united to the local church, missionaries often act like we are an exception to the rule. We are not. Whenever possible, we need to be joined to an actual local church. If one doesn’t exist, then, like William Carey and his team, we need to do that most basic of missionary activities and form one.

2 – Weekly Missionary Chapel does not model what locals should do. Whenever possible, missionaries should be visible examples for locals of faithful Christian living. This includes both how we live as individuals as well as how we live in community. But when missionaries sidestep the local church in favor of Weekly Missionary Chapel they find themselves in the awkward position of modeling one thing for the locals even while they try to train them to do something else.

Every aspect of biblical church missing from a given Weekly Missionary Chapel is another aspect of Christian life that the locals will not see modeled by their missionary mentors – if they are allowed to see anything at all (see more on this below). Without seeing it lived out, it’s far more difficult for locals to obey what they are being taught from the word. This is true even if the locals trust the missionaries so much that they are willing to do what they say, but not what they do.

The Bible is clear. Ministry by example is the norm for faithfulness to transfer from one generation of disciples to the next (Phil 3:17). If missionaries want the locals to be faithful members of local churches that then go on to plant other churches, then they should be modeling this themselves.

This modeling principle is so fundamental to missions that it’s hard to understand how this disconnect exists for so many missionaries. But exist it does, hence why I use ‘blindspot’ for this issue. Again, here it seems that we missionaries feel that we are in a special category and that we don’t need to consistently model on the field what we teach – at least when it comes to church.

3 – Weekly Missionary Chapel does not provide adequate pastoral care. In most Weekly Missionary Chapels, there is no team of pastors or elders. Instead, different missionaries share the leadership responsibilities for the different activities that take place. While a missionary may sign up to preach a sermon or to lead worship, or be part of a planning team, none of them view themselves or are viewed by others as the spiritual shepherds of the other missionaries who participate. If the team leader is put in that role, then this is another problem, one we’ll address below. In Weekly Missionary Chapel, the missionaries involved don’t tend to wrestle with the weight of having to give an account for souls entrusted to them. Instead, everyone participates as an individual believer. Yes, there is often voluntary spiritual care for one another that takes place, but there’s also plenty of room to stay out of messy investment in other expats because after all, “we didn’t come here for the foreigners.”

In addition to this, many missionaries are not wired and gifted to be pastors. Missionaries tend to be evangelists, visionaries, strategic thinkers, risk-takers, pioneers, and starters. These are amazing gifts, but they are not the gifts of a steady, long-term shepherd whose eyes are first for the sheep entrusted to him and only after that for the lost sheep scattered out on the mountainsides. Missionaries committed to Weekly Missionary Chapel usually have their eyes primarily on those lost sheep and not the other foreigners they worship with. This can change, and missionaries can at times serve as faithful pastors to one another, but it requires an intentional commitment and formal organization that most missionaries would rather not be burdened by. They feel that have enough ministry on their hands without this added load.

But what about getting pastoral care from the sending church? Missionaries might tell themselves that they can get adequate pastoral care via the internet from their pastors back home, but this is wishful thinking. While helpful as a backup, pastoring through a computer screen will never compare to the kind of life-on-life shepherding possible from a man who is called and gifted to pastor God’s people. Video calls are an amazing technology, but they should not replace face-to-face spiritual family.

Missionaries are still Christians. And Christians need to live under the care of pastors whenever possible. Missionaries show that they instinctively know this by submitting again to the leadership of in-person pastors whenever they’re on furlough, even if they tend to live differently while on the field. Once again, we missionaries assume that because this access to face-to-face pastoral care is sometimes not possible for us (in pioneer church planting situations or high security areas, for example), we have now become exceptions where we should avoid it even in the many places where it is possible. And even if we are willing to become temporary pastors for locals on the field, rare is the missionary who will be willing to do this for other foreigners.

4 – Weekly Missionary Chapel excludes outsiders along unbiblical lines. If you want to make many a missionary squirm, ask them if your local friend who is studying the Bible with you can participate in team worship this week. This is because many Weekly Missionary Chapels are closed meetings open only to a specific missionary team. In this case, membership in a team has become the qualification for the weekly gathering with God’s people. Others might be open only to those who work for the same NGO or who are part of a group of partner teams. Often, the stated or unstated rule is that this is a gathering only for the missionaries, not for the locals.

What exactly is the biblical basis for excluding other believers (or genuine seekers) from the weekly gathering of believers based on team, occupation, or ethnicity? If the answer is that Weekly Missionary Chapel is not a local church, then we are back to point one. Why are these missionaries not obeying Jesus by being part of a local church? If it is meant to be a church, then there must be a mechanism for welcoming in outsiders, even in the most security-sensitive areas. A church that will not welcome in other believers or genuine seekers is a mutant thing, like some kind of body grown in on itself. The New Testament knows of no such gatherings (1 Cor 14:23-24). But the mission field is full of them.

But what about the language differences and the need for locals to form their own churches? Language is indeed a valid reason to form separate churches. But often, Weekly Missionary Chapels remain a missionary-only affair long after those missionaries are proficient in the local tongue. What is the reason for this? It’s not language. And while the end goal is indeed for locals to form their own churches, then why if one does not exist is it the common default to leave the local isolated while the foreigners have their own encouraging weekly get-together without them? As our locals say, there’s a hair in that yogurt, something is off here.

5 – Weekly Missionary Chapel reinforces blindspots and lopsided gifting. I really enjoy hanging out with other missionaries because we have so much in common. Few people can understand where I’m coming from like another missionary. But that’s also the same reason why I don’t want to be in a church only made up of other missionaries, whenever possible. We think similarly, we live similarly, we even dress similarly (If you doubt this last point you need to start paying better attention in international airports. There is a demographic ‘uniform’ of sorts and once you see it you can’t unsee it).

The fact is, when I am in a room made up of only other missionaries, that is a room of lopsided gifting and shared blindspots. We may all love evangelism, but that might also mean we’re all weak in the kinds of gifts that make a good deacon. For every overlap in our strengths, there’s a corresponding overlap in our weaknesses. A normal local church balances out the gifts of the body (1 Cor 12). But a church made up of only missionaries is like a hand with 5 thumbs – something unnatural.

There is a reason so many missionaries on the field have no issues with doing Weekly Missionary Chapel for years on end without ever joining or forming a local church together. We all think alike. And this means we are handicapped in our ability to see our shared blindspots, let alone challenge them. Missionaries are great at seeing the blindspots of their home culture and the culture they’ve come to serve. But we have a very hard time seeing the blindspots of our own missionary culture. For our own spiritual health, then, we need to be members of local churches with those who are not like us.

6 – Weekly Missionary Chapel creates unhealthy systems of accountability. Say a missionary is having a tense disagreement with his team leader about a missions strategy decision. That is a team/work issue. But what happens when the team leader is also functioning as the undefined spiritual authority of the Weekly Missionary Chapel and seeks to make it a spiritual church-ish issue also? And what if the missionary has retained his membership in his sending church back home and his pastors back there disagree with the team leader’s call?

It’s easy to see how quickly the complex lines of authority that every missionary deals with get even more muddled when there is not a healthy distinction between team and church, employment and church membership. Weekly Missionary Chapel departs from the clearer lines of spiritual authority that are present when a believer is a member of a local church. It introduces vague and therefore unhealthy overlapping systems of accountability between missionaries on the field.

This all means that missionaries and organizations on the field are prone to overstep their spiritual authority – and to do so in inconsistent and unpredictable ways – because Weekly Missionary Chapel creates a vacuum of clear spiritual leadership. By refusing to become an actual local church, the Weekly Missionary Chapel has set itself up for lots of messy and muddled conflicts.

7 – Weekly Missionary Chapel leads to conflict on the field. Building on the previous point, Weekly Missionary Chapel contributes to the stunning amount of hurtful conflicts between missionaries on the field. I continue to be amazed at the kinds of fallings-out that missionaries have with one another. Part of this is spiritual warfare – but part of it is also a structural issue.

By opting for Weekly Missionary Chapel, missionaries are trying to be everything for one another. And no matter how healthy our little team or network of missionaries is, it’s not a strong enough structure to take that kind of pressure. Missionaries are coworkers with one another and professionally accountable and dependent on one another. But we are often also one another’s functional family and friend group while on the field. We do holidays and birthdays together and are ‘aunts’ and ‘uncles’ for one another’s kids. Add to this that we are often colleagues working together at a platform – English teaching or medical professionals, for example. Then we want to add that we should be church for one another, but without the strength of any kind of covenant commitment. This is a recipe for disaster.

A stronger, clearer, and frankly, larger structure is needed to handle the enormous amounts of pressure and stress that missionaries live with. When missionaries join local churches, then this broader and more diverse community can help bear their burdens far better than a Weekly Missionary Chapel. Many of us missionaries know the value of friendships with other missionaries who are not with our own organization, how this kind of relationship can be a vital pressure-release valve. What we don’t realize is that the local church can do an even better job of this. Weekly Missionary Chapel, on the other hand, cannot take the pressure. With its overwhelming degree of overlap and its lack of covenant commitment to one another, it’s simply not strong enough. The conflicts of an intense life-on-life ‘marriage’ of sorts are there, but none of the promises. No wonder messy break-ups keep happening.

8 – Weekly Missionary Chapel prioritizes short-term efficiency over long-term effectiveness. There are times when our choices as Westerners expose our underlying worldview and culture, when we bend over to do some heavy lifting and the metaphorical underpants start showing. This is very much the case when Western missionaries choose Weekly Missionary Chapel over joining or forming a local church. Western missionaries are nothing if not goal-oriented, efficiency-loving, time-saving, project-accomplishing ninjas. This is why we’re so busy. It’s also why so many locals on the field feel like they are our projects, rather than our friends. This cultural wiring comes with some real upsides, but the downsides and blindspots are very real also.

Sadly, this mission-driven part of our wiring sometimes causes us to bypass crucially important things when we feel they take up too much time. This is often what is going on with Weekly Missionary Chapel. Missionaries have an enormous task on their hands that includes language learning, local relationships, government red tape, and the messiness of trying to plant local churches. Their time is precious. So, in order to protect their effectiveness to reach their goals, they cut out meaningful membership in a local church. Weekly Missionary Chapel, on the other hand, asks very little of the missionary. It feels like a far more efficient structure in a season where there’s not enough time and relational capacity to go around.

Weekly Missionary Chapel promises to protect the missionary’s laser-focus on his task by not asking him to be a part of members meetings, by not asking him to build relationships with other believers not connected to his goal, and by not asking him to serve in children’s church. The assumption is that these are all good things for normal Christians, but for the missionary they are distractions keeping him back from his higher calling.

The problem is many missionaries don’t understand that the slower path of meaningful investment in a local church while on the field actually leads to greater long-term effectiveness. We will be more effective long-term because we are not bypassing the Lord’s means of grace for his people, the weekly assembly full of diverse brothers and sisters. We will be more effective long-term because we will be modeling and living that faithfulness is not just about the end, but about the means as well. We will be more effective because our posture will be one of continually honoring the bride of Christ, even when it’s costly. And we will be more effective because God will always honor that investment in his bride in unexpected and delightful ways.

Right now my family is building a friendship with a family from Zimbabwe that are members at the international church. They are here because the husband is an accountant and we’ve hit it off in part because our kids are becoming such good friends. At this point, I have no idea how investing in this friendship will come back around to help our work with Central Asians. But I trust that, somehow, it will. It would not be unlike God at all to use my African brother the accountant to unlock the key to breakthrough here.

9 – Weekly Missionary Chapel is often cloaked in a false belief that Westerners contaminate Indigenous churches. I’ve written about this in detail before, so here I’ll just summarize. Many missionaries feel they should not do church with the locals because by their very presence they will contaminate everything and ruin the possibility of contextual multiplying churches. In fact, these fears are an over-reaction that comes out of our unique position as Westerners in a post-Colonial world. It sounds and feels humble, but this posture actually prevents the Westerner from doing the kind of direct ministry by example that is so needed by his local friends – and that is commanded in the Bible.

We need to watch out for how our fears and the right goal of planting indigenous multiplying churches can serve as a smokescreen for sidestepping the local church.

The Lord Will Provide

Like Carey, Ward, and Marshman in 1899, our instinct should be to form or join a local church as soon as we can on the mission field. The choice of so many to do Weekly Missionary Chapel instead is not a neutral decision. It’s causing harm, both to missionaries and to the locals they are seeking to reach. It’s time we raise the alarm and help the global missionary community be able to see this pervasive blindspot.

Weekly Missionary Chapel may not be a local church, but it can very easily become one. All it requires is some biblical clarity, some intentionality, and some investment. Yes, investment is necessary, both on the front end and for the long-term, whether forming a new church out of our missionary team or joining a local church that already exists. But don’t be afraid of that. God will provide whatever resources you feel you don’t have so that you are able to honor and invest in his church.

Dear brothers and sisters on the mission field, you have risked so much for the sake of Jesus’ name among the nations. Now, do it again. Leave the seemingly-safe investment in Weekly Missionary Chapel and instead risk again by starting or joining a local church. Trust the great rewarder with whatever costs you incur. And then see what he does for those who risk for his bride.

If you have been helped or encouraged by the content on this blog, would you consider supporting this writing and our family while we serve in Central Asia? You can do so here.

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The Bold Faith of The Migrant Brothers

Today we were voted back in as members of the international church here in Caravan City. What a joy it was to be officially joined again to this body of believers after almost four years away.

Like many international churches, our new/old church family is quite diverse. We have over twenty nationalities represented in the membership, coming from a very broad range of socioeconomic situations. Among the most impoverished of our members would be the migrant workers who come from Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Africa. Many work grueling hours for low pay, enduring slave-like treatment from local employers, paying higher visa fees and navigating more government red tape and corruption than we do, all while living a continent away from their spouses and children whom they work so hard to support.

I have often been thankful for the chance to be in covenant with these brothers and sisters. Their situation is so different from that of us Western missionaries. It’s also quite different from that of the local believers. When I hear of their faithfulness I am often taken aback – and reminded of things that I might otherwise miss were I only in fellowship with Western missionaries and Central Asians. Some missionaries here might feel that church relationships with migrant workers are a distraction from the work they have been sent to do. But I have often found it instead to be an unexpected source of encouragement and perspective.

This week, I was in conversation with another missionary here about patronage expectations from local believers. He asked my thoughts about the many local believers who say they don’t attend church because they can’t afford the taxi fare, instead hinting that the church leaders should cover the transportation costs for them.

I told him that we’ve often heard the same thing, but that locals will indeed pay taxi fare without grumbling for the weekly gatherings they prioritize. This was something we observed early on as we experimented with weekly English groups. At the time, our believing local friends would sacrifice to attend these groups in order to improve their English. But they wouldn’t show up for a house church meeting. At the end of the day, paying the taxi fare to come to church wasn’t an issue of means, but an issue of priorities and discipleship.

“But maybe the church could offer some kind of partial help,” I offered, “where if they pay the fare to the church meeting, then the church can help with the taxi fare back to their homes afterward. That way locals would still have some skin in the game.”

“That might work,” said my friend, “But then you have the example of the Pakistani brothers.”

“Why? What do they do?”

“They pool their money to afford a group taxi ride to church every week. But they don’t have enough to afford a ride back. They just come to the service in faith that God will provide them with rides afterward. To my knowledge, he always has.”

“No kidding!” I responded, “Well, in that case, I change my mind. We should not do the half-and-half thing, unless we do it for everyone. Instead, the local believers need to hear how these Pakistani brothers are prioritizing the weekly gathering like this. What an example.”

I was convicted and encouraged to hear of the faith of these migrant brothers. Even more so because this was the same week where our own vehicle purchase was being finalized. To tell the truth, neither myself as a Western believer nor my believing Central Asian friends would have considered this kind of transportation plan actually feasible or wise. But now we were confronted with some faithful South Asian brothers who have been doing it week in and week out for years.

It seems that sometimes the faithful poor are quietly the richest in faith among us. Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God (Luke 6:20).

Now, I don’t believe that the rest of us should suddenly sell our vehicles, cut our incomes, and do as the Pakistanis do. Rather, scripture would call us to watch out for pride, to not put our trust in our transportation riches, and to instead trust God and be generous, ready to share our vehicles and taxi money to bless the body (1 Tim 6:17-19).

But I think the example of these brothers does mean that we should be convicted about how far we are willing to go to honor the bride of Christ. After all, if we are supposed to be willing to obey to the point of shedding blood, then that surely means we should be relatively radical in what we’re willing to do to obediently gather with God’s people (Heb 2:4, 10:25).

Yes, even if that might mean a very long and dusty walk home afterward. How interesting though that it has not yet meant this for our Pakistani brothers, even though they risk it week in, week out. For now, God seems to enjoy rewarding them with rides back home after church. And what a sweet weekly reminder of God’s provision this must be for these resource-strapped men.

But eternity is coming, and along with it all of God’s perfectly poetic rewards. And I, for one, will not be surprised if these migrant brothers end up with some of the nicest ‘rides’ in all of New Jerusalem.

If you have been helped or encouraged by the content on this blog, would you consider supporting this writing and our family while we serve in Central Asia? You can do so here.

God provided the needed teacher for our kids’ school. Praise Him!

For my list of recommended books and travel gear, click here.

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Why Do Good Churches Send Bad Missionaries?

This helpful article from the Great Commission Council focuses on something that happens far more than you might expect – good churches sending unqualified missionaries to the mission field. As the article points out, when this happens it usually means the local church has not understood that it, not the mission agency, has the primary responsibility and authority to assess prospective missionaries. Rather than outsourcing this critical role to the agency, the sending church should focus on assessing potential missionaries in three categories: 1) Character, 2) Clear vision of biblical ministry, and 3) Preparedness for the mission field.

A young couple, fairly new to the church and largely unknown, asked to meet with the elders. Much to the elders’ surprise, the couple informed them that they were going to be missionaries. They had applied to a mission agency and were assessed and approved by that agency to leave for the field pending the agreement of their home church to be designated as their sending church. With a simple sign-off from the elders, the church could send some of their own to labor for the gospel among the nations. Sounds exciting!

Wisely, the elders pushed pause. They could sense that this couple loved Jesus and cared deeply for the nations. Yet, the elders had no reason to believe the couple was gifted for ministry. The elders had seen no evidence of them sharing the gospel with a non-believer, and they certainly couldn’t identify any fruit from such labors. The elders also couldn’t identify anyone in a discipleship relationship with either of them. Though they didn’t seem disqualified, there was nothing the elders had seen that would indicate this couple was called to the missionary task and equipped for it. The elders reasoned that in a year or so, they could reassess the couple for missionary service.

The sad reality is that the most unusual thing about the story above is the elders’ questioning the process…

Read the whole article here.

The Lord has provided all the funds we need for our vehicle and our first year on the field! Thank you to all of you who have prayed for us, encouraged us, and given to us during these past nine months of support raising!

Our kids’ Christian school here in Central Asia has an immediate need for a teacher for the combined 2nd and 3rd grade class. An education degree and some experience is required, but the position is salaried, not requiring support raising. If interested, reach out here!

For my list of recommended books and travel gear, click here.

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The Things That Block the Streets

One month into our return to Central Asia and we’re still able to see some of those things that are quite different from living in the US. This ability will not last forever. Day by day our senses register everything around us the new normal and we stop noticing the differences almost altogether. That is, until some member of a short-term team points them out to us.

One of the things that has jumped out at me recently is the variety of things that block the streets here in our corner of Central Asia that you’d be hard-pressed to ever encounter on a major road in an American community. But for our new/old location of Caravan City, these things are actually quite normal. So, without further ado, I present The Things That Block the Streets.

  1. Winter kerosene distribution. The other day I was driving to the park when I noticed that the road up ahead was completely blocked by a crowd of men waiting with pickup trucks, motorcycle carts, and metal barrels. Eventually, when a large smelly tanker pulled up, I realized what was going on. The crowd was waiting for the annual government kerosene distribution. For several decades now, many local families have relied on the government to provide them with one barrel of fuel for their kerosene heaters that is meant to last them through the coming winter. This is viewed locally almost like a human right, especially for those who are poor or working class, something that no legitimate government should ever ignore. After all, in an oil-rich country, why should anyone not be able to afford some basic kerosene heating? It’s important enough to the civil servants and the citizens that the routes of daily commuters are of no concern when it’s time to distribute this year’s winter fuel. Time until road is open: an hour or two.
  2. Funeral tents. Countless times we’ve been driving through neighborhood streets when we make a turn and are suddenly faced by a large black tent that spans the width of the street, packed on the inside with stackable plastic chairs. This means someone who lived on that street has just passed away. For several days, the street now belongs to the funeral tent and its constant traffic of friends, neighbors, and relatives coming to sit and pay their respects and listen to a Mullah-for-hire occasionally chant the Qur’an. You are welcome to enter the tent on foot and participate in the funeral ritual, but there is no way your car is getting through. Time until road is open: three or four days.
  3. Election time vehicle parade mobs. Our region’s parliament is holding elections soon and I narrowly avoided getting sucked into one of these metal mobs just the other night. You’ve probably seen images or videos of Trump vehicle convoys in the US. Well, put that on steroids. And instead of a single line of pickup trucks, picture instead a multitude of all kinds of vehicles, with people hanging out the window, waving flags, and honking horns, taking up the entire width of the street. Sometimes they camp out in one spot as they celebrate and try to outdo the other vehicle parades in their enthusiasm. One year we got stuck in one of these for two hours. Time until road is open: fifteen minutes to two hours.
  4. Spontaneous lane creation. Lanes painted on the road are optional recommendations here. Especially when traffic is heavy, three lanes may suddenly turn into six as all the local drivers try to inch ahead with margins that make any Western visitors deeply distraught. This usually works out, amazingly, without anyone’s car scraping along the side of someone else’s. But occasionally the locals do get just a little too aggressive in their spontaneous lane creation and the whole thing ends up one big traffic knot. Thankfully, locals – who really are quite gifted drivers in tight spaces – can usually undo this knot without too much trouble. Time until road is open: five to fifteen minutes.
  5. Herds of sheep, goats, cows, or geese. This one is more common on the outskirts of the city or while driving through smaller towns or village areas. Turns out shepherds and cowherds are quite patient people, which is no doubt a good characteristic for their line of work. But this also means they’re in no hurry to get their livestock across the road and happy to let their herd saunter past the growing line of vehicles on either side. Time until road is open: two to five minutes.
  6. Protests. Government not paying your salary on time? Receiving even less electricity than usual? Take to the streets! This is more common in Poet City or in village areas than here in Caravan City, where the locals are more submissive. And of all the things that block the streets, this one is the most dangerous. Not because the protestors themselves are violent – but because the government response might be. It’s not uncommon for tear gas canisters and even bullets to begin flying when a decent-sized protest is blocking the road, so our policy has long been to stay as far away from protests as possible. Time until road is open: depends on how quickly the trucks full of men with AK-47s arrive, but usually an hour or so.

We’ve learned that there is no wisdom in fighting against these things that block the streets. These blockages and delays are simply part of what it means to be a driver in our corner of Central Asia. The best response is to relax, trust God, and to try to find a way around. Or, to turn off your engine and settle in for a good conversation. Who knows? You may even have time to get out of your car, drink a quick shot of chai, and buy some sunflower seeds for munching while you continue to wait in your vehicle. You may have planned your day and your route like a Westerner, but you are in Central Asia now. The things that block the road come with the territory. Rest in God’s plan to make you more patient and maybe even more Central Asian. And eat those sunflower seeds. Seriously, the seeds really do help.

If you would like to help us purchase a vehicle for our family as we serve in Central Asia (only 2k currently needed!), you can reach out here.

Our kids’ Christian school here in Central Asia has an immediate need for a teacher for the combined 2nd and 3rd grade class. An education degree and some experience is required, but the position is salaried, not requiring support raising. If interested, reach out here!

For my list of recommended books and travel gear, click here.

*Names of locals and cities changed for security

Photos are from Unsplash.com

Radio, Jail Time, and Regeneration

Sometimes the way the Son sets you free is by first sending you to prison. This is what happened to Red*, a Central Asian friend whose path keeps intersecting with mine in ways both curious and unpredictable. Finding out that he is now born again, a new man, has been one of the best surprises of our return so far.

The first time I met Red I was perusing a bookshop in the heart of the bazaar. This was back in Poet City*, during our first term. I was scanning the shelves when a young bespectacled man approached me, maybe seventeen or eighteen years old. He asked, in English, if I was a foreigner. I responded in the local language that yes, I was. He was delighted I could speak his language and introduced himself as Red, telling me that he lived an hour and a half to the east, in one of the most conservative cities in our region.

Red told me that he led a weekly philosophy group with some of his peers and that he wanted me to come and visit the group sometime. I was fascinated. This was the same city that had lost 500 of its young men a few years earlier. They had been radicalized by an extremely violent terrorist group and had gone off to die in Jihad. What was going on with Red and these other students such that rather than go along with the dominant religious culture of their city, they instead gathered to discuss philosophy? Chances were, some of them were genuinely searching for the truth. We exchanged numbers and I fully intended to visit Red’s group. But for some reason, I never made it out to visit those high school students. Recalling this when we were preparing for our first furlough, it felt like I had missed something that I had been supposed to pursue.

For our second term, we were asked to relocate to the Caravan City*, three hours away, where we planned to form a church planting partnership with the international church. And who should approach me after the very first service we attended? Red, of all people. It had been a couple of years since our bookshop encounter, but we recognized one another right away. I was thrilled to see him attending this solid, gospel-preaching church. Red explained to me that he was now going to university in Caravan City and that he had developed a deep love for Jesus – an affection fostered by his discovery, of all things, of “Positive, Encouraging!” American Christian Radio online.

Inwardly, I chuckled at myself. I was not a huge fan of mainstream American Christian radio music. I felt most of the songs were too shallow, too individualistic, too generic, and too “Jesus is my boyfriend.” This kind of disillusionment with Christian pop worship music had even led me to give up on Christian music outside of church settings for about a decade. But just like action figure Jesus or the song, I Have Decided to Follow Jesus, God seemed to enjoy taking parts of American Christian culture that made me cringe and using them to draw Central Asians to himself.

Red was not yet a believer. But he was clearly drawn to Jesus and also to the church community. Though he would often attend the English-language service over the next six months, he didn’t seem interested in attending our local language Bible study. This trend was not uncommon among young men, but it did make it harder to tell if they were genuinely drawn to Jesus versus English and friendships with Americans. Then the Covid lockdowns came, universities shut down, and Red was stuck back in his hometown. It was at this point that he asked me if we could study the Bible together over the Internet. I happily agreed.

Normally, I start in the Book of Matthew with my Muslim friends. Matthew’s concrete language, regular takedowns of pharisaical religion, and slow and steady case for Jesus’ divinity have meant multiple Central Asian friends have come to faith somewhere in the middle of the book. But, remembering that Red was drawn to philosophy, I decided to read the book of John with him. For the next couple of months, we walked through the first half of John together. It seemed like Red’s mind and heart were being engaged by the Word, but it was still not clear that he understood the gospel.

After a short period, our video call Bible studies came to an end. I can’t recall exactly why, but it was right around when my family was suddenly plunged into crisis when my daughter got terribly sick from what we soon learned was new-onset diabetes. By God’s grace, her life was spared. But this meant the next six months were spent, first, in trying to get out of the country at a time when international air travel was almost completely shut down, and then, trying to figure out in the US if we could stabilize enough to come back.

When we finally did return in the fall of 2020, Red had a unique proposition for me. What if we started an English-language radio station together? Red’s father was the owner of dozens of radio towers in our region. Because of this, he had a good relationship with one of the major media networks here. His son had inherited his father’s knack for all things radio, and so with a few good words from Dad, Red had been invited to pitch a new English-language radio station, focused on the youth of our region.

The pitch had gone well, in part due to the executives’ surprise at this cocky 20-year-old who didn’t seem fazed at all to be interviewing with some of the more powerful media men in the country – including the network CEO, the president’s cousin. Red was very confident in his vision for this new English radio station and in his own abilities to form a solid team. In this, he was not wrong. He was extremely smart, a visionary, and able to form a great team. But Red had no idea how to manage his team or how to break down his vision into a practical plan. As a fellow visionary-type myself (at the time trying to lead my own deeply divided team), I could relate. Unfortunately, this weakness as a manager would ultimately spell the doom of Red’s grand radio plans.

I was brought onto the team to do short, engaging content on the history of our region. Because our locals really value concrete, visual proof of competence, I showed up to the next interview in my nicest teacher jacket, carrying a huge stack of history books. When the president’s cousin and the other radio executives asked me what I was doing with all these books, I was able to tell them that they were full of fascinating stories about their past that none of them had ever heard before. Holding up my chai cup as an example, I shared with them how the American revolutionaries’ boycott of British tea eventually led to tea becoming the reigning hot beverage in our region, replacing coffee. The British needed a market for all their excess tea now that the American market was closed, so they pivoted hard to Central Asia. “And that’s why you drink chai so much,” I concluded. Apparently, my little demonstration had the intended effect and I was officially dubbed a history expert fit for national radio.

In the following weeks, we made it as far as visiting a fancy new tower under construction to give our input on the blueprints for our new studio. This step made it seem like it was really going to happen.

There were six of us on the team: Red, myself, a local who had grown up in Canada and was now a gifted trilingual DJ, and several other young men and women who were in charge of running other fun or educational shows. Since I was in my early 30s, I was the old experienced guy among this crew of 20-somethings. I was hoping to leverage my ‘old man’ status to help hold the team together since serious signs of dysfunction were already showing.

Good questions about timing, expectations, and compensation were dismissed by Red as people not being optimistic enough or not truly understanding the vision. Consistently, Red was able to describe the end goal, but not what we needed to do to practically get there. And though he was brilliant in some ways, he was also very young and often unreliable. He might go dark for days at a time, leaving the rest of us to text each other to figure out what was actually happening. When the team found out he had merely been preoccupied with a new girlfriend, for example, tempers flared.

In the end, the new radio station never came to fruition. There was no clear announcement, just longer and longer periods of silence from Red until eventually the rest of us concluded that the thing must have been killed for some reason behind the scenes. The others moved on to other projects. My family found ourselves suddenly asked to move back to Poet City. And the whole radio thing became a strange unfinished story that only came out unexpectedly with friends. “Weren’t you supposed to be doing history stuff on the radio? Whatever happened to that?”

That was the last I heard of Red – until this month, that is. Upon our return to Caravan City, I learned that not only had Red been around, but he was now a beloved new believer. He had recently moved back to Poet City and everyone in the church here seemed to miss his presence. Could this be the same Red that I knew? This past week he visited Caravan City again and shared with me what happened.

Last year, Red had traveled to another country in our region. There, for some reason, he took a selfie in front of the Mexican embassy. Apparently, this is a big no-no. Red was arrested and ended up in prison for two whole months before being extradited back to his home country. While this all sounds like overkill to me, it must have been some kind of providential overkill. This is because while in prison, Red came to the end of himself. For the first time, he knew himself to be a sinner. He came under conviction for his different addictions, for his womanizing, for his pride. His Bible came alive to him as he read it for hours every day in his cell. And for the first time, he experienced the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.

“The Bible is so clear and rich to me now,” he told me. “I could never understand it when we would read it before. But now I feel like I can finally understand it and like I could study it forever.”

Red’s physical demeanor even seemed different to me. True, he had aged a bit. There were now hints of grey showing up in his beard and hair. But he also seemed more at peace than he had before, humble even. He told me excitedly about how he’s hoping to get baptized soon and trying to figure all that out now that he’s going to be joining the international church in Poet City. Because he’s been discipled as a new believer here in Caravan City, the two churches may end up doing a baptism picnic together to celebrate.

Red and I hugged as we said goodbye and laughed about all the ways we keep running into one another over the years, from the bookshop to our season as prospective radio hosts, to the brotherhood we now finally share together. If our future paths are anything like what our past paths have been, then I’m sure I’ll see him again soon.

I now see that same fancy tower where our radio studio was supposed to be every time I look out my bedroom window. It’s a good reminder to pray for Red. In years past, we had prayed a lot for Red to be set free. For that to happen, God had to first send him to prison. An unexpected means of answering prayer? Yes. But Red, for his part, doesn’t seem to mind at all.

If you would like to help us purchase a vehicle for our family as we serve in Central Asia (only 3k currently needed), you can reach out here.

Our kids’ Christian school here in Central Asia has an immediate need for a teacher for the combined 2nd and 3rd grade class. An education degree and some experience is required, but the position is salaried, not requiring support raising. If interested, reach out here!

For my list of recommended books and travel gear, click here.

*Names of locals and cities changed for security

Photos are from Unsplash.com

A Pro-Translation God

…perhaps, indeed, we should be talking not of language prestige but language charisma. Sanskrit, besides being the sacred language of Hinduism, has owed much to disciples of the Buddha; and Hebrew would have been lost thousands of years ago with Judaism. Arabic is more ambiguous: in the long term, Islam has proved the fundamental motive for its spread, but it was Arab-led armies which actually took the language into western Asia and northern Africa, creating new states in which proselytising would follow. Arabs were also famous as traders round the Indian Ocean, but the acceptance of Islam in these areas has never given Arabic anything more than a role in liturgy. Curiously, the linguistic effects of spreading conversions turn out to be almost independent of the preachers’ own priorities. Christians have been fairly indifferent to the language in which their faith is expressed, and their classic text, The New Testament, records the sayings of Jesus in translation; and yet Christianity itself has played a crucial role in the preservation of, and indeed the prestige of, many languages, including Aramaic, Greek, Latin and Gothic.

– Ostler, Empires of the Word, pp. 21-22

Ostler makes some interesting observations here on the effect that religion has on languages. It’s a mixed picture. Clearly, religion can be one major factor in why languages spread and how they are preserved. But as he notes, the results can be very unpredictable. The acquisition or spread of a new faith along with a new language sometimes go together. But not always.

In terms of Christianity’s posture toward which language we use to make disciples, we often forget the fact that the sayings of Jesus in the New Testament are a Spirit-inspired translation of his actual words. This is good evidence that God is a pro-translation God, modeling for us that the most important truths in the universe can indeed make the jump from one tongue to another. This apparently holds true even though the range of meanings for an individual word in a given language is always slightly or even vastly different from that of its equivalent in another language – if an equivalent exists at all. Languages are never one-to-one equivalents, and yet God provided four infallible translation accounts of Jesus’ teachings. This provides much hope for those of us involved in translation work that is definitely fallible, but God willing, still good.

Christianity’s preservation of languages through Bible translation alone is something celebrated even by pagans. But languages redeemed to serve the Church can still go awry. Forgetting that not even the language of Jesus was preserved by the authors of the New Testament as the holy language of heaven and earth, believers in certain ages have tried to elevate their own languages instead, whether that be Latin, Greek, Coptic, Syriac, or KJV English. While the desire to preserve a tongue once used mightily by God is commendable, it becomes a bad thing when a rigid ongoing use of that tongue in liturgy or preaching increasingly denies God’s people the kind of hearing that can lead to faith.

Every Sunday for decades, the gospel was utterly unintelligible for one of my closest friends who grew up in an ethnic Christian community here in Central Asia. This was not only because he was not yet born again – but because God’s word had been fossilized in an ancient form of his language that was no longer intelligible to anyone but the priests. Turns out the miracle of the new birth can only take place when the gospel is communicated in a language we can understand.

The language is never the end in and of itself. It is the means by which we reach our goal of spiritual communication. Lose sight of this and we risk losing entire people groups that once were saturated with vibrant churches and true believers.

If you would like to help us purchase a vehicle for our family as we serve in Central Asia (only 3k currently needed), you can reach out here.

Our kids’ Christian school here in Central Asia has an immediate need for a teacher for the combined 2nd and 3rd grade class. An education degree and some experience is required, but the position is salaried, not requiring support raising. If interested, reach out here!

For my list of recommended books and travel gear, click here.

Photos are from Wikimedia Commons

International Pig Meat Smugglers, Inc.

In the season just before we found out that Ahab* was a wolf in sheep’s clothing, I was trying to help him start a small business. Ahab was a sharp man with many skills, but he had strangely gone without work for quite some time. Looking back, this should have been another warning sign. What was really going on was that Ahab was unwilling to work another real job since he believed he deserved a ministry salary – especially now that our church plant was meeting in his house. But it took some time for this to come out.

In the meantime, I tried to help him start an illegal pig meat business. At the time, I wasn’t really thinking through the legality of everything, just trying to see if the concept would work. But yes, afterward we found out that we were indeed violating a number of Islamic social and import/export laws. Alas, it was for a good cause.

I was eager to see if I could help this potential elder start a small business that would provide for his family’s needs in a climate where outspoken believers often face many hurdles to gainful employment. At that time, most locals only lived on $500 a month or less. So, a small business only needed to bring in several hundred dollars a month in profit to be significantly helpful for a family like Ahab’s.

During this first term of ours overseas, my mind was aflame with dozens of business ideas that locals could start. Many of these ideas came from noticing what wasn’t yet available in our area compared to much of the developed world. And one product that was simply nowhere to be found was pork or pig meat of any kind.

This is not too hard to understand since we live in an Islamic country. Yet I was surprised that there was almost no infrastructure whatsoever for selling pork products to the growing population of foreigners. I remember once seeing a store section in Dubai labeled, PORK – NOT FOR MUSLIMS! Our grocery stores had no such sections with intimidating signage. Every once in a while an alcohol store would sell some canned spam of some sort. But even this was a rarity.

Some of our colleagues had decided not to eat pork for the sake of witness. But since eating pork didn’t lead to any loss of relationships in our local culture, others of us decided that we would occasionally partake as a way to point toward gospel freedom, bless local believers, and simply enjoy one of God’s good gifts. But those of us who partook had to content ourselves with precooked bacon or packages of pepperoni occasionally carried over in suitcases. Once, I won an American canned ham in a white elephant Christmas game. That was a good Christmas.

However, I knew that there were abundant wild pigs up in the mountains. Many locals would hunt them for sport. Some would even cook what they killed, bragging to close friends about eating something that had been forbidden to them all their lives.

Putting two and two together, one day I asked Ahab if he knew anyone who regularly went pig hunting.

“Yes, my son-in-law who lives just over the border.”

Like many families, and like our people group as a whole, Ahab’s kinfolk treated international borders much more casually than Westerners would. After all, their people group had been living in these mountains for millennia. Empires rose, kingdoms fell, borders changed – and their people group was still there, fighting rival tribes, marrying women from those same tribes, herding livestock, robbing caravans, and trading between ancestral areas as they pleased. In fact, because of this arbitrary imposition of borders by outsiders, smuggling is still viewed as an honorable trade here. The modern state in all its rigidity continues to gain power and permanence, but for now, the older tribal and semi-nomadic ways still regularly violate its borders and thereby call its legitimacy into question.

“Brother Ahab, could your son-in-law ever bring us pig meat to sell to the foreigners here?”

“Yes… Yes, he could do that. He goes hunting all the time and then comes to visit us or we go to visit them at least once a month.”

“Well,” I continued, “I’m not sure yet, but there might be enough interest among the foreigners such that there would be a monthly demand for fresh pig meat.”

Later that night, I posted a question on one of the expat Facebook pages. “Would anyone be interested in buying fresh wild pig meat were we to start selling it?”

Now, I tend to be an optimist when it comes to business ideas, but the response I got surprised even me. Dozens of expats from at least two big cities said they would be eager to buy wild pig meat from us were we to start selling it. All of a sudden, a plan was coming together.

A few weeks later, we had our first batch of fresh mountain boar meat. These cuts of meat were for us to cook, in hopes that we could develop a good recipe to recommend to buyers.

“Did they give your son-in-law any trouble at the border?” I asked Ahab, worried about what the Islamic border guards might do if they discovered someone transporting haram (Islam’s term for defiling) meat across the border.

“No trouble at all! They asked what it was and he truthfully said, ‘Meat.’ Look at it,” he said, pointing into the cooler full of rich red slabs of mountain pig, “It looks red like cow meat, so they let them right on through.”

Here, our local language did us a favor. The most common term for animal meat in daily usage is a generic one that doesn’t distinguish what animal that meat is coming from. It could be cow, lamb, goat – or pig. The listener doesn’t know unless he asks a specific follow-up question. Even then, the common answer might be given as ‘beast meat’ as opposed to ‘bird meat,’ and the specific beast still might not be named. So, we had at least two levels of linguistic cover.

My wife and I looked up a recipe online for cooking wild pig meat and decided to try one that involved cooking the meat in a slow cooker with garlic, onions, salt and pepper, and red wine. I went down the street to the same liquor store where I had once bought vodka to try and treat a mold infestation.

“I need some red wine for cooking pig meat!” I said, the clerks shaking their heads at these wild excuses I kept giving them for why I was buying alcohol.

For the taste test meal, we invited two other local believers to come and try it with us, serving it with Dijon mustard and barbecue sauces for dipping. Even after soaking in its slow cooker brew, the meat still proved to taste much gamier than normal pork would. Yet it was tender, juicy, and still contained rich flavors that hinted at this wild porker’s distant relation to the pink farm swine so long domesticated in the West.

The foreigners would enjoy this. The local believers? Hit or miss. One of our guests liked it. The other one, unfortunately, pledged afterward to never eat pork again – a vow I believe he has kept to this day. In his defense, when you’ve been told your whole life that pork is the most disgusting and unclean thing you can possibly eat, this can be quite the hurdle to overcome. Regardless of what his tastebuds told him, his mind was convinced it would make him sick. In hindsight, we really should have started him out with bacon, not roast of feral pig. Every local believer we’ve introduced to bacon first has afterward joined us in a long-term enjoyment of this delicious meat of the new covenant.

Having found a recipe we were mostly satisfied with, we then began advertising to the expat Facebook community. The first orders were placed and fulfilled. More cross-border trips took place without any issues. New orders came in. Things were looking promising.

Unfortunately, right about this time is when other local believers started approaching us with very concerning things that Ahab was saying to them behind closed doors. So naturally, our small business efforts halted and then came to an end in parallel to our hopes for Ahab’s future leadership in the church. In the following weeks and months, it became apparent that Ahab was not who he seemed to be, but that we had a very skillful deceiver on our hands. Among many more serious things, this meant that the fledgling pig meat business would also have to come to an end.

In the years since we’ve not attempted it again. Yes, the later revelations that it was technically illegal were one part of this. But the concept still comes up every now and then. Just last week I was talking to our kids’ school director about small business ideas for the students as they learn about entrepreneurship.

“We need a decent sausage business here!” I told her. “There are no good sausages or hot dogs available whatsoever. Even if it’s only some good beef and chicken franks, I’m convinced there’s a market here for it among the expats and locals who have come back from Europe.”

“And…” I continued, “Maybe you could have a secret menu of pork sausages.”

I do know it’s not illegal here for Christians to sell pork products to other Christians, so we may yet have a sausage company here someday. But yes, this time we’d be careful to do some legal research ahead of time. We’ll also keep things simple by sourcing our feral pigs domestically. No international smuggling required – just a trusty local hunter with a good rifle and decent cooler.

And if, in the good providence of God, our illegal pig meat operation with Ahab somehow eventually contributes to a solid small business for some missionary kids, then that would be worth celebrating. All things for good. Even ill-conceived pig meat smuggling operations.

If you would like to help us purchase a vehicle for our family as we serve in Central Asia (4k currently needed), you can reach out here.

Our kids’ Christian school here in Central Asia has an immediate need for a teacher for the combined 2nd and 3rd grade class. An education degree and some experience is required, but the position is salaried, not requiring support raising. If interested, reach out here!

For my list of recommended books and travel gear, click here.

*Names of locals changed for security

Photos are from Unsplash.com

The Important Role of Foreign Stabilizers

“I’m worried about us local believers,” a new local friend said to me yesterday as we sat in a cafe dating back to the 1880s, sipping a brew made from wild tree nuts.

“We don’t know how to be steady. We are concerned with so many things and get upset so quickly and leave the church.”

“That’s not too unusual for new believers,” I responded. “And it points to one way the foreigners can help in this season. We model stability until, slowly-slowly, the local believers can also become stable.”

The ironic thing is that missionaries are some of the least stable and most transient people I know, at least in terms of physical presence. We move constantly. We take a lot of trips in and out of the country. We get uprooted by family needs or leadership gaps or security crises. At first glance, we may seem to make poor examples of being “steadfast, immovable.”

And yet one of the most important roles for missionaries in places like Central Asia is that of the stabilizer. We may be familiar with the concept of a foreign agitator, some kind of spy whose presence is meant to stir up discontent and division among the locals. Well, when it comes to our posture among the local believers, I am more and more convinced that we are to be foreign stabilizers – especially in terms of spiritual stability. To put it in terms of being on a journey, when surrounded by our younger brothers and sisters who want to sprint, grumble, fight, go off trail, give up, or go back, we simply keep plodding and modeling the “long obedience in the same direction.” We are, or should be, a lot like faithful, stubborn turtles.

When it comes to the believers from our particular region, there really is for a good many years a restlessness, a spiritual and emotional flailing around, a great struggle with steady commitment and contentment. Many stumble over the simplicity and repetitive, quiet nature of true spiritual growth, whether that’s the growth of an individual or that of a local church. Like adults with traumatic childhoods, some internal part of them tends to freak out and go on the attack when finally offered true stability – even when that’s what they most desperately long for and need.

Now, add into this mix Westerners’ expectations of speed and results and their fear of wielding spiritual authority and you get one very destructive brew. The very last thing my local friends need is a foreign missionary who himself is restless because he’s overcome by the immensity of the lostness, or, who is terrified of ‘contaminating’ the locals with his culture. Or, even worse, those willing to turn to money to catalyze some kind of ‘movement’ because they’re doing the math and realize unhappily that at the rate of fifteen believers after five years they won’t ever reach their goal of one million believers they’d set back when they were fundraising in America.

No, what will truly serve my local friends is if we set our course for faithfulness – and simply keep going whether they join us or not. In order to really help them, we must be honest appraisers of the lack of stability that is currently there, while at the same time being incredibly hopeful about the fact that Jesus really will eventually create the needed spiritual steadfastness in them. We must not depend on them when it comes to our own initial role of modeling faithfulness and healthy church, while also constantly reminding them that it is our heart’s desire that someday we will depend on them completely. We must ourselves be the stable core of the local church plant that will, Lord-willing, one day, fully thrive without us.

This kind of posture may be offensive to other missionaries. After all, it places the foreigner at the visible beating center of the work, sometimes for a good long time. In the short run, it may draw accusations of paternalism or building one’s own kingdom or not trusting the Spirit. But if the missionary takes on this role of foreign stabilizer for the sake of loving his currently unstable brothers and sisters, then time will show that this kind of foreigner-leading-by-example-as-long-as-it-takes model is actually the one that best raises up locals in the long-run. Missionaries are afraid to take charge like this because it looks bad. But good missions work should always be less concerned with optics and more concerned with what’s actually most loving for others.

This sort of model is not without its dangers, of course. But the alternative – attempting to stay in the background and using salaries to prop up locals prematurely – is far, far more dangerous. Ministry salaries follow spiritual and emotional maturity. They cannot create it.

The traditional analogy for missionaries is that we are like scaffolding – temporary, only present until the permanent structure of the indigenous Church can be built. This is a great analogy in many ways. But at least for our context, its focus on external support doesn’t communicate well the necessity of the missionary’s central stabilizing role. A better analogy might be that the missionary is like some kind of planet orbiting a star that by nature of its own gravity pulls other renegade space rocks and moons into, first, its own orbit, and then eventually into that of its sun. I’m not very good at science illustrations, so if this would never happen in the real universe, you’ll have to forgive me. But I think you see my point.

I don’t presume that every unreached context will need the same thing. Due to differences in how common grace has been dispersed, some people groups will not have the same kind of radical spiritual instability that ours do. But I do presume that there are other contexts out there a lot like ours, where missionaries have been told they are not supposed to be front and center, that this would be taking a step backward as it were, who are now confused because being the stable center seems to be the most loving and effective way forward.

If this is you, then my encouragement would be to forget what it looks like. Love your local friends by being the stable example they need. Teach, preach, lead, counsel, worship, rebuke, gather, host, visit – do the work of the ministry in a steadfast, immovable fashion. Your local friends can eventually ‘catch’ Christian stability by observing you. So, be the kind of steady believer they have never seen before. Be an example, and thereby, a foreign stabilizer.

If you would like to help us purchase a vehicle for our family as we serve in Central Asia (8k currently needed), you can reach out here.

For my list of recommended books and travel gear, click here.

Photos are from Unsplash.com

Go Into All The World And Make Friends

My son recently asked me who my best friends are. I took a moment to think, then said, “My best friend in the U.S. is Reza* and my best friend in Central Asia is Darius*.” I smiled as I said it, realizing these two brothers from Muslim backgrounds—one a refugee and one a new pastor in his home city—really are two of my closest friends.

Humanly speaking, we shouldn’t be friends at all. But the gospel has done something remarkable in us, such that we now love one another with a deep and happy loyalty. For this, I’m indebted to these brothers who’ve so often pursued the relationship. I’m also indebted to my parents who modeled a deep love and friendship for the local believers they served as missionaries in Melanesia. When I eventually became a missionary, I naturally followed in their footsteps.

Yet when it comes to missions, few speak explicitly about the centrality of friendship. Of course, we might have close friends back home, our own Andrew Fullers who hold the ropes for us. Or we might value the close fellowship and camaraderie of teammates on the field. But we seldom consider how affectionate friendships of equality with locals are one of the primary goals and rewards of a life spent proclaiming the gospel among the nations.

Friendship with God

One way to describe the missionary’s goal is to see others become friends with the eternal God and his Son, Jesus Christ. This is the vertical side of friendship in missions. We shouldn’t lose sight of the scandal of this invitation. How can it be that rebellious sinners, lifelong enemies of God, are welcomed into friendship with the holy God they’ve so long spurned? Yet this is the language of the Bible.

Abraham, the father of all who are saved by faith, is called a friend of God (James 2:23). Jesus was known as the friend of sinners (Matt. 11:19). He explicitly tells his disciples they’re no longer only servants but friends (John 15:13–15).

As a missionary, I have the privilege of seeing Central Asians befriended by God. That’s my goal. It’s also my reward.

Befriending Locals

In faithful cross-cultural ministry, we invite the nations into friendship with God. However, by virtue of their new relationship with Christ, they should also become friends with us. This is the horizontal side of friendship in missions; not only does God gain new and eternal friends but so do we. At least we will if we follow in the footsteps of Paul, whose ministry overflowed with affectionate friendship toward those who believed the gospel.

Paul didn’t only give the gospel to local believers; he shared his life with them (1 Thess. 2:8). He didn’t limit himself to ministry relationships or even task-focused partnerships. In addition to being their loving father in the faith, he became their devoted friend (Acts 24:23).

We see this friendship through Paul’s constant, thankful, joyful prayers for local believers. We see it in his unembarrassed professions of affection and longing to spend time with them (Phil. 1:3–4, 8; 1 Thess. 3:6, 10). Paul truly held these believers in his heart, delighting in them in person while also doing his best to stay in touch with them from a distance (Phil. 1:7; 4:21–22; 1 Cor. 16:7). He lived sacrificially for them and allowed them to care for his needs (Phil. 2:17; 4:16). He treated them as equals, calling them brothers. He was proud of them, calling them his crown (4:1). Paul and his friends even wept with and for one another (Acts 20:37).

Problem of Self-Protection

But we must be honest about something. When you talk to local believers in many missions contexts, they’ll tell you missionaries seem hesitant to enter into this kind of close friendship with them. Many try to keep a safer relational distance from locals.

Why is that? Maybe it’s because missionaries know they’re transient. This is perhaps an act of self-protection in a lifestyle given to so many costly goodbyes. Others may struggle to befriend locals out of confusion about what healthy boundaries are. Sadly, some may quietly despise the culture or even unconsciously look down on locals. Whatever the reason, missionaries should try to understand why they’re keeping locals at arm’s length—then repent.

As one of my pastors in Central Asia recently told me, the diversity of our friendships is meant to display the gospel’s beauty. Wealthy local friends should marvel that you also befriend the street cleaner. And your fellow countrymen back home should be surprised by the depth of your friendships with local believers whose backgrounds are so different from your own.

Worth the Risk

Missionaries may be effective in many aspects of their ministry with locals. They may have solid partnerships, even a level of trust. But that’s not the same as risking the vulnerability and equality that characterizes true spiritual friendship. It’s not the same as the shared delight that missionaries have with those from their own culture. And locals can tell the difference.

However, the most beloved (and hence effective) missionaries are genuine friends with the local believers. Yes, this will make missions more costly. Sin, betrayal, and abandonment will break your heart when you’ve entrusted it to local believers. I’ve gone through seasons when I dared not risk such friendships. Too many had left, had failed, had turned on us when we needed them most. Yet I’m so glad the Lord didn’t leave me in that place but gently brought my heart back to a posture of vulnerability—and I once again tasted the sweet rewards of affection.

Some of my fondest moments as a missionary have been when my Central Asian friends and I dream together about the new heavens and earth. We talk about how much we look forward to being there together with Jesus, telling stories, and sipping New Jerusalem chai. If our friendship now with one another and with Jesus is such a kind gift—such an undeserved reward—then just imagine what it’ll be like in the resurrection.

Go Make Friends

The Scottish missionary John Paton knew the costs and rewards of friendship on the mission field. He also anticipated the joys of those friendships perfected in glory. Recounting the death of his friend Chief Kowia, he writes,

Thus died a man who had been a cannibal Chief, but by the grace of God and the love of Jesus changed, transfigured into a character of light and beauty. I lost, in losing him, one of my best friends and most courageous helpers; but I knew that day, and I know now, that there is one soul at least from Tanna to sing the glories of Jesus in Heaven—and, oh, the rapture when I meet him there!

Friendship is one of the primary goals and richest rewards of missions. I’m convinced faithful missionaries should exhibit a posture of humility and vulnerability, pursuing affectionate and mutual love with local believers. Because we don’t go to the ends of the earth only to make disciples. We also go to make friends.

This post was originally published at The Gospel Coalition

If you would like to help us purchase a vehicle for our family as we serve in Central Asia (11k currently needed), you can reach out here.

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*Names Changed for Security

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A Proverb Against Silly Self Denial

Are you a melon eater or a melon picker?

– local oral tradition

I just learned this one this week and I’m so glad I did. Allegedly, it’s a saying all our locals know well. However, it does require some explanation.

In our Central Asian culture, there are a lot of honorable and repeated refusals of generous offers of hospitality. Now, when these offers are made in the honorable-hypothetical way, turning down an invitation is exactly what you are supposed to do. But when it’s a genuine offer from a friend, something clearly good and helpful, or something you would simply be foolish to refuse, that’s when this saying comes out.

The logic of this saying is that, given the choice, everyone would rather sit and eat sweet juicy melons than go out into the heat of the late summer fields and pick them. A clearer way to phrase these sentiments in English might be, “Are you actually choosing to go out and harvest melons when I’m offering to serve them to you? I’ve already done the work. Why are you denying yourself something good that I’m clearly ready to bless you with?”

There are times when self-denial and refusing others’ service or help is good, right, and noble. And then there are times when it’s just silly – or even a form of pride. True humility not only avoids taking advantage of others’ hospitality and generosity but is also willing to receive it. Sometimes we need to swallow our pride and just enjoy that good gift that is being genuinely extended to us.

I can easily picture a Central Asian mama, hands on her hips, scolding her brother who’s come for a visit, but is for some reason refusing to sit and take a minute to rest.

“Don’t be dumb. It’s 111 degrees outside. Sit and eat some cold melon for a minute.”

While this is a more informal proverb, I’m curious if it might also work for those who object that the free gift of salvation in Jesus is simply way too easy. Many here feel that salvation through faith in God’s promises is not a difficult enough road for them. They would rather walk the anxiety-ridden path of works righteousness than rest in the free gift of salvation being offered them in Jesus. Why? Because the gift is all of grace – and therefore it means they can’t feel proud of themselves for having earned it.

Don’t be a melon picker. Be a melon eater. Receive the good gifts of God.

If you would like to help us afford a solid set of wheels for driving around our corner of Central Asia (11k needed), you can reach out here.

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